Pay for your dinner using plastic bottles at Rove Hotels

This gives a whole new meaning to paying with plastic. Diners at Rove Hotel can swap unwanted bottles for food.

Every Sunday, every plastic bottle handed in is good for AED 1 of dining credit at The Rove’s Daily restaurants, up to a maximum of AED 250.

Rovers can bring their (clean and empty) plastic bottles to The Daily in Dubai Marina, City Centre, Trade Centre and Healthcare City. Recycling specialists in the UAE will then transform them into buckets, tubs and mats.

In return, you get money off your order from The Daily’s menu of healthy international eats and excellent coffee. With their huge benches, free Wifi and welcoming staff, the all-day restaurants are welcoming spots, especially during the 4pm-6pm happy hour.

As marine conservation campaigners like Hugo Tagholm predicts a worldwide passion for plastic will create an environmental crisis as serious as climate change, businesses in Dubai are now cleaning up their environmental act by ditching single use plastics, like straws and cutlery.

Inspired by the vision of His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President of the UAR and Ruler of Dubai, hotels and restaurants including Rove have dropped plastic straws and stirrers. Next target is disposable plastic bottles, which every UAE resident uses an estimated 450 of every year.

Natalie Banks, manager of non-profit marine conservation organisation Azraq, says: “It is great to see Rove Hotels focus on recycling these plastic bottles in addition to already removing plastic straws from their hotels. Initiatives like this are an important step in reducing plastic waste and marine debris, which are known to have terrible consequences to marine environments and are proving to also be harmful to human health and tourism opportunities.”